Mar. 16, 2012

A worker drives a tractor in fields south of Gonzales on March 4, 2004. File photo

Written by

SARAH JANE KELLER

The Central Coast's fields are iconic as a source of fresh produce, but decades of intensive fertilizer and pesticide use have left a legacy of water pollution in the region's surface and groundwater.

Awareness of the problem, especially drinking-water contamination, has grown among consumers, farmers and regulators. But stakeholders on the Central Coast are locked in a battle over how to maintain agricultural economic viability while monitoring — and reducing — water contamination by nitrates, pesticides and sediments.

The battle culminated Thursday evening in San Luis Obispo, when the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Board voted to adopt controversial regulations for irrigated lands. But ag leaders, unhappy with some of the new regulations, said the debate is likely to continue.

Meanwhile, a state-funded study released ahead of the meeting underscored that cleaning up drinking water is a long-term problem that must be addressed on the farm and at the tap.

A problem for years to come

That study, released earlier this week by the University of California, Davis, shows that nitrate contamination in Salinas Valley drinking water is more severe than originally thought, said Michael Thomas, assistant executive officer of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, which regulates surface and groundwater quality in the region.

"This is the largest public health threat [the regional water board] has ever dealt with," Thomas said.

One in 10 people in the Salinas Valley (and the Central Valley's Tulare Lake Basin) who rely on groundwater are at risk for drinking water that exceeds the nitrate standard, according to the study. Small water systems and homes on their own wells are most vulnerable.

The State Water Quality Control Board funded UC Davis researchers to independently assess the causes and severity of nitrate contamination in Salinas Valley and Tulare Lake Basin drinking water, as well as identify solutions.

"The main conclusion from this report is, first and foremost, this nitrate issue is a drinking water issue," said Thomas Harter, the UC Davis hydrologist who led the 20-month project.

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"Even if we abolish all the sources tomorrow, we're going to have this problem in drinking water for years and decades to come," Harter said. "The report also emphasizes that the groundwater pollution problem is going to get worse in the coming decades."

A costly solution

The Salinas Valley farm worker cooperative of San Jerardo vividly illustrates the problem.

Bordered by eucalyptus trees, San Jerardo stands out, oasis-like, among the fields south of Salinas.

The community was born from the farm labor movement of the 1970s and people have been happy living there since — except for the water problems, said Horacio Amezquita, the cooperative's manager.

Like 80 percent of the Central Coast, San Jerardo's drinking water comes from groundwater. In the 1990s, the community learned its wells were polluted with 1,2,3-trichloropropane — an unregulated industrial solvent — and nitrates.

Nitrate is applied to soil as synthetic fertilizer and can be a by-product of organic fertilizer. If plants don't use it, it can dissolve into irrigation water, rainfall and other surface water and leach into the ground.

In spite of drilling new wells, by 2001, San Jerardo's residents could not drink their tap water. Eventually, some had eye irritation, rashes and hair loss when they showered with the water.

The California Department of Public Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency consider nitrate a contaminant if drinking water contains more than 45 milligrams per liter. In infants, excess nitrate consumption can rob their blood's ability to carry oxygen, a potentially fatal condition known as methemoglobinemia, sometimes called "blue baby syndrome." Long-term health effects of nitrate consumption by adults have not been well studied, but some have suggested links to thyroid illness and cancer.

In 2006, at the urging of Amezquita and others, San Jerardo got a temporary water filtration system. Then, in 2010, the county received stimulus money on San Jerardo's behalf and the co-op connected to a new, clean well 2 miles away. However, the solution left residents with the ongoing costs of the new water system.

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Tracking nitrate

Using a detailed accounting of nitrate sources, the UC Davis study looked at data from wastewater treatment plants, septic systems, parks, lawns, golf courses and agricultural land-all of which can add nitrate to groundwater. It found that cropland contributes an estimated 96 percent of the nitrate leached into Salinas Valley and Tulare Lake Region groundwater.

The challenge now, according to Harter, is how to measure and reduce the discharge from farms into groundwater.

"The regulatory agencies are asking farmers to comply with a speed limit, but they need a speedometer," he said.

What that speedometer looks like — how to track nitrogen leaving a farm, not just in groundwater but also surface water — is a key part of the updated irrigated lands order the regional water board adopted on Thursday.

For more than three years, agriculture, environmental and public health stakeholders have debated how to control nutrients, pesticides and sediments leaving Central Coast farms through runoff and groundwater. As part of the board's extensive public comment process, each stakeholder group submitted alternative proposals to the board's draft agricultural order.

"The core disagreement that agriculture has with the staff proposal is really about how we achieve water quality," said Abby Taylor-Silva, spokeswoman for Salinas-based Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. "We all agree that we want to see water quality improvements and that agriculture plays a major role."

Agriculture's alternative proposal allowed farmers to form water quality monitoring cooperatives and use third-party audits. In contrast to the board's staff proposal, the ag alternative did not require public reporting of monitoring data from individual farms.

However, the law that directs regional water boards to protect water quality — the 1969 Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act — says that information submitted to the board under the new agricultural order has to be public, Thomas said.

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The ag waiver adopted Thursday included late changes that incorporated elements of agriculture's alternative proposal. However, Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, said, "It doesn't provide a lot of relief from the onerous reporting and monitoring or provide a lot of incentive to participate in collective treatment.

"I don't see a whole lot of carrot at the moment, (but there is) a whole lot of stick in the order now," Groot continued. "It's kind of disappointing that the regulated community provided a very comprehensive proposal and that it wasn't taken seriously."

Steve Shimek, executive director for Otter Project, Inc. and program manager for Monterey County Coast Keeper, had a different take.

"Changes made in the end brought ag's alternative and the staff proposal much closer together," Shimek said.

On Friday, the day after the board's vote, both Groot and Shimek said they were still absorbing the outcome and last-minute changes.

"We're so happy that they took positive steps and we can turn the page and have the next discussion," Shimek said.

Removing the guesswork

In the midst of the protracted regulatory debate, some innovative growers have been trying new ways to manage water and nutrients on their land.

Over the past 20 years, more farmers have been using soil samples to help prevent over-fertilizing, Taylor-Silva said. Drip irrigation and slow-release fertilizers are also important developments. "There's a more enlightened understanding," she said. "It's more expensive to operate without that understanding."

If plants get too little water and fertilizer, growers risk a poor-quality crop. But if growers add extra nutrients and water — which aren't free — nitrate can leach into the groundwater.

The University of California Cooperative Extension in Monterey County develops techniques and technology so farmers can more precisely manage fertilizer and water on their crops. Researchers have developed quick soil nitrogen tests so farmers can better match fertilizer application to the needs of lettuce and other crops. Another project uses online scheduling software so farmers can track their water and fertilizer applications.

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"Really, what the growers want are tools that help them take the guessing out of how they make decisions on fertilizer," said Michael Cahn, one of the UC Cooperative Extension advisers involved in the work.

Cleanup, treatment options

Even with new regulations and farmers adopting the best practices available, nitrate input into Salinas Valley groundwater isn't likely to disappear any time soon.

The need for safe drinking water combined with the viability of some of the most productive farmlands in California, "puts us in a position where we're likely to see continuing additions of nitrogen to groundwater for the foreseeable future," said Jonathan Bishop, the chief deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board, which commissioned the UC Davis report.

"We do think — and the report highlights — that there are ways to reduce the amount of input, but I don't think we're going to eliminate it," Bishop said. "So that leaves us with cleanup or treatment before use as options."

Treatment before use is already occurring in Salinas. Of California Water Service's 40 wells serving the city, six are treated because they contain nitrate levels above the drinking water standard. Others are trending upward, according to Mike Jones, district manager at California Water. He is budgeting to treat three more wells in the next three years. Jones emphasized the company monitors and treats city water, so it is safe to drink.

The utility does everything it can to avoid using the high-nitrate wells and keep water bills down for customers, Jones said. But when the company has to bring the contaminated wells on-line to meet demand, it can cost twice as much to treat the well water for nitrates.

The UC Davis report estimates there are about 254,000 people on community water systems or domestic wells that are highly susceptible to nitrate contamination, and it will cost $20 million to $35 million per year to treat their water. There is no monitoring program for private wells, and because they are usually shallower than municipal wells, they are more susceptible to contamination.

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"The technologies are out there," Harter said. "The real question is who will provide the funding for these communities, many of whom are economically disadvantaged."

In his San Jerardo office, Amezquita turned to a calculator to estimate that the entire 64-home co-op used to pay about $35,000 per year for water and now pays about $80,000 per year.

Some people can afford it, but Amezquita pointed to a folder of bills for one of San Jerardo's lowest-income residents. People like her don't have the means to pay the high costs and can't afford to move, Amezquita said. Plus, residents who built the tidy community from a dusty old Army post would be leaving behind more than just their house.

Amezquita's family was part of the group that founded San Jerardo in the early 1970s. He grew up picking strawberries and ran a custom farm business with his brothers before leaving the agriculture industry to manage the co-op.

"I think that we need to take care of the water," he said. "Especially when the pollution is spreading — it's not just going to be San Jerardo, it's going to be so many people. Now is the time to act. You cannot go again five or 10 years without being regulated."

'We all have a problem'

The UC Davis report will inform the state legislature, but does not direct lawmakers on how to fund water treatment, or how to consolidate small water systems like San Jerardo's. It does suggest market-based regulatory actions may improve water quality at a lower cost to farmers, compared to prescriptive regulation or technology mandates.

The report proposes a fertilizer fee as "a promising funding source that also creates incentives for dischargers to use fertilizer and water more efficiently." Farmers are currently exempt from a sales tax on fertilizer. The study estimates that a 7.5 percent sales tax on the cost of nitrogen could raise an estimated $28 million annually to offset the cost of contaminated water.

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The State Water Quality Control Board will use the UC Davis report and public comment to make recommendations to the legislature for addressing nitrate in drinking water. The state water board is scheduled to hold a public workshop May 23 in Sacramento.

Ag Innovations Network, a Sebastopol-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving the long-term health of agriculture and the environment in California, hosted a discussion last month, to help stakeholders restore constructive dialogue on the irrigated lands regulation adopted Thursday night.

"It's not just a farming problem; we all have a problem," said Joseph McIntyre, president of the network.

"The way we currently grow food to achieve the prices the public wants requires the application of nitrogen fertilizers," he said.

Yet not dealing with nitrate introduces other costs to society, such as those borne by municipalities and private citizens who pay to treat contaminated water, he said.

"The regional water board is putting itself at the forefront of what's going to be a big emerging issue in California agriculture, which is nitrogen management," McIntyre said. "This whole system is a balance between our desire for really good fresh produce with the unintended consequences of producing that food."